Customer Reviews

Life With Mickey! (Disney)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The contents of this set have been released.

In addition to the below listed 40 Mickey Mouse black and white cartoons, the set contains the following bonus items.

Disc 1 Bonus
Leonard Maltin Introduction
Mickey's Mania: Collecting Mickey Merchandise
Mickey's Portrait Artist John Hench

Disc 2 Bonus
Leonard Maltin Introduction
Leonard Maltin From The Vault Introduction
Mickey's Sunday Funnies: A Virtual Comic Strip
Still Frame Galleries

The cartoon titles are as follows, with the year they were released.

1. The Barn Dance 1928
2. The Opry House 1929
3. When The Cat's Away 1929
4. The Barnyard Battle 1929
5. The Plow Boy 1929
6. Mickey's Choo-Choo 1929
7. The Jazz Fool 1929
8. Jungle Rhythm 1929
9. The Haunted House 1929
10. Wild Waves 1929
11. Just Mickey 1930
12. The Barnyard Concert 1930
13. The Cactus Kid 1930
14. The Shindig 1930
15. The Picnic 1930
16. Traffic Troubles 1931
17. The Castaway 1931
18. The Moose Hunt 1931
19. The Delivery Boy 1931
20. Fishin' Around 1931
21. The Barnyard Broadcast 1931
22. The Beach Party 1931
23. The Grocery Boy 1932
24. The Mad Dog 1932
25. Barnyard Olympics 1932
26. Musical Farmer 1932
27. Mickey In Arabia 1932
28. Trader Mickey 1932
29. The Wayward Canary 1932
30. Mickey's Good Deed 1932
31. Mickey's Pal Pluto 1933
32. Mickey's Mellerdrammer 1933
33. Mickey's Mechanical Man 1933
34. The Steeple Chase 1933
35. Shanghaied 1934
36. Playful Pluto 1934
37. Mickey's Steam-Roller 1934
38. Mickey Plays Papa 1934
39. Mickey's Man Friday 1935
40. Mickey's Kangaroo 1935

Most of the cartoons are very entertaining and are among my favorite cartoons of all time. Many of the cartoons have never been released on video or shown on the Disney Channel. Some were shown on the Disney Channel, but were censored when shown. Some of the most entertaining cartoons and some of my favorites, such as The Moose Hunt, Mickey In Arabia, Trader Mickey, Mickey's Good Deed, Mickey's Mellerdrammer, and Mickey's Man Friday have not been shown (or shown censored) due to gun violence or racial/ethnic stereotypes. Although such scenes would still be objectionable to some, the cartoons are very special and need to be seen complete and uncensored. Cartoons that are considered to have objectionable scenes will be shown in a special section of Disc 2 called From The Vault. Leonard Maltin will do a special introduction for this section.

I have seen all these cartoons uncensored and look forward to a DVD set with nicer quality picture and sound.

Among the uncensored cartoons, one of my favorites is Mickey's Good Deed - a great Christmas cartoon, which shows the close friendship between Mickey and Pluto.

If you are a fan of vintage cartoons as I am, you have probably already purchased this set or it is on its way. This set makes up the B&W Mickey shorts that were passed over in the first volume, when Disney was unsure of the current popularity of these cartoons. The most important thing about this set is that most of these cartoons have not been shown on television for decades, if at all. The most historically important thing is that most were directed by Ub Iwerks, originator of the Mickey Mouse style and some would say the inspiration for Japan's Manga style for the past half century. These films are rare gems that should be in any collection, and are extremely effective as entertainment for any child. The often overlooked character, Horace Horsecollar is also featured in most of these shorts.

The second volume in the Mickey in Black & white from the Disney Treasures collection picks up where volume one left off and gives us all 40 of the remaining mickey mouse shorts.

I'm guessing most of these shorts have not been seen in ages. I personally have always preferred the old style, black-eye only look of mickey to the more modern look of today.

And of course, nothing beats the classic animation from the 30's and 40's before studios started doing things on the cheap.

Among my favorites in this collection are:

"Mickey's Mechanical Man" - Mickey's built a robot named Champ who's going to win Mickey a prize by fighting Beppo the Gorilla, the Kongo Killer, in a boxing ring.

"The Haunted House"

"Mickey's Pal, Pluto"

"traffic Troubles" - Mickey is a taxi driver. He takes Percy Pig to an appointment, but loses him on the way. His next fare doesn't fare much better; Minnie must go to her music lesson, but a detour through a barnyard and an encounter with a snake-oil salesman ruin that plan, too.

Well...there's lots more. This is just fantastic stuff. It's animation the way it isn't done anymore.

Add to that a whole host of extras: Leonard Maltin introductions, "Mickey's Mania: Collecting Mickey Merchandise", "Mickey's Portrait Artist: John Hench", "Mickey's Sunday Funnies: A Virtual Comic Strip", Still Frame Galleries, etc.

Great stuff and highly recommended.

As a hardcore Disney fan, the Treasures series is a dream come true -- and I certainly won't rest until I have every single cartoon from the Disney vault. I originally owned Mickey in B&W Vol 1 when it was on Laserdisc fifteen years ago; and knowing then that there were a few missing, I am thrilled to have this second volume.
But unfortunately, the people at Disney seem very much ashamed of their cartoons. On most of the Disney Treasure series, any appearance of a gun, an obscure racial stereotype or the use of the word "Mammy" is preceeded by a gushing apology from Leonard Maltin, explaining how back in the Dark Ages of the 1930's, people weren't as enlightened as they are today, and that we shouldn't judge too harshly.
But what the Disney people don't realize is that most people today don't know who Al Jolson was and won't know what "Mammy" is referring to. By pointing out these often hard-to-spot gags (one is a face-shaped balloon floating in the background), it just makes us notice them and even look for them.
But this particular collection goes beyond the previous collections, which is why I can't give this one 5 stars. They have taken all the cartoons that could be remotely offensive, including most of the best in this collection(including a classic Christmas cartoon), and placed them in a separate section. To access this section, you have to sit through a three-minute apology from Leonard Maltin, which cannot be skipped or scanned -- you have to sit through it every single time you watch these cartoons. They call this section "From the Vault", which I took to mean that they hadn't been seen in many years. Actually, they mean that these cartoons should only be watched alone, by adults, in the dark of night -- each time making me feel like a prurient pervert.
Still, I do applaud Disney for releasing these, especially their WWII collection, without censoring them for our delicate modern minds. But I do wish they would stop treating their own classics as though they might turn us all into gun-wielding Nazi racists.

If the Disney wartime cartoons were perhaps the most obscure and hard-to-find, then the black and white Mickey Mouse shorts presented in this volume are without a doubt next in line. With never-before-released and rarely seen (since their original debut more than 70 years ago!) shorts, this collection of 40 Mickey Mouse cartoons, is a definite must-have for any serious Disney collector. Only a few shorts, such as "Shanghaied," "The Haunted House," and "Mickey's Good Deed," had been released previously as part of the cartoon compilations that came out on video during the 80's. The rest are here for the first time on DVD and only the few devoted and lucky people who watched and enjoyed when Disney Channel actually played these shorts, may even know or recognize them. Some, such as "Mickey's Mellerdremmer," which shows Mickey and the Gang portraying the characters from Uncle Tom's Cabin, and "Mickey's Man Friday" featuring cannibals, are presented here, as with every other single short, UNCUT and UNEDITED, regardless of their definitely un-PC content. There is actually a section of the second disc dedicated to ten shorts that showcase what modern audiences may consider as unacceptable stereotypes and behaviors, especially coming from a Mickey Mouse cartoon. A virtual comic strip, an interview, a featurette and a gallery round up this DVD release that will undoubtedly be a favorite for anyone who loves and collects Disney animated shorts.

I have to say if you're a fan of vintage black-and-white cartoons you have to get this. This disc set starts with 1928's "The Barn Dance," which was the fourth Mickey Mouse short (and the second one Disney produced in sound). Already the Disney staff was improving upon what they had set the course with the previous "Steamboat Willie." And as you go along with the shorts according to chronological order, you can see how the animation improves as time goes along, as well as how the Disney staff learnd to use a more structured way of storytelling. (Certainly using storyboards had a postive effect on the series, which really was not done before Mickey. Some of these storyboard drawings you can check out on Disc Two.) Some of the early sound Mickey shorts might not have been big on plot but they had a lot of music and gags. Some of the best cartoons from this collection are "Barnyard Broadcast" (in which a cat and four kittens interrupt Mickey's radio broadcast), "The Barn Dance," "Delivery Boy," and "Playful Pluto." "The Barnyard Concert," done in 1930, is a prototype for the color "The Band Concert" (which would come five years later), in where Mickey conducts an orchestra in a barnyard despite continuing mishaps.

As noted in previous reviews, the cartoons that conatain racial or ethnic stereotypes are put in the separate "From The Vault" section on Disc Two. The intro to that section has Leonard Maltin explaining the context to the Al Jolson "Mammy" jokes as well as the play/novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Another cartoon that gets placed in that section, "The Moose Hunt," has a scatological joke that one does not expect from Disney. (BTW I understand why that intro was made, I just wish I could skip or skim through it. Having to go through that again and again just I could see the cartoons themselves gets quite redundant.)

Overall this is a great collection. It makes me want to check out "Mickey Mouse In Black and White Volume 1."

The best of the black and white Mickeys, and the best known all went on the first set. Leaving, obviously, the lesser cartoons for this follow-up collection. But second rate Mickey is still first class entertainment, and most of these cartoons are entertaining indeed.
As with the previous set, the worst aspect of the collection is Leonard Maltin. WHY can't he trust his viewers to have a little intelligence?
In vol. I, any cartoon that contained humor that was less than PC by contemporary standards was burdened with a brief introduction warning us about what we were about to see. In this volume, all those 'offensive' cartoons are clustered together in a separate section of the second disk, labeled "From the Vault." Apparently these cartoons are so offensive that they have to be locked away in a vault, and only viewed after Maltin has given us a detailed apology about how people were so unenlightened in the 1930's and '40's that they put such horrific content in their cartoons. And that, while SOME people might want to lock these films away for all eternity, HE believes that it's ok to watch them, if only to help us understand how much times have changed. Sigh...
To make it worse, every time you want to view ANY cartoon from 'the vault' you have to first sit through the commentary. The disk won't allow you to fast forward through it. And, to be honest, I couldn't even figure out what was supposed to be so 'offensive' about several of the shorts in 'the vault.'

Still, if you can put up with Maltin, this is a wonderful set, and well worth owning for any fan of Disney or early animation. (BTW, if there are any easter eggs on the disks, I haven't been able to find them.)

This "volume 2" of Mickey Mouse in Black and White is superb. Perhaps in response to complaints about volume 1, volume 2 includes a "Play All" option, and we get fewer of Leonard Maltin's banal cautions that "This cartoon may be hazardous to your child's political correctness." Certain cartoons with racial stereotypes are grouped in a separate section of disc 2 ("From the Vault") that is not linked to "Play All." This is not a bad way to handle the issue.

This set is a real treat for the animation buff. Films long relegated to the vault due to sensitivity issues, finally get to see the light of day where they belong - in the hands of the true fan.

I feel sorry for the reviewer below who is so ignorant about the development of Technicolor - before there was three-strip color, films were in either black and white or the limited two-strip. Perhaps he's advocating colorization - perish the thought. Who knows, enough ink of that simpleton. Go out and treat yourself to some of the finest in the origins of a legend!

This is the second volume of black and white Mickey Mouse cartoons. If you get this and the the first volume, you will have all the black and white Mickey Mouse cartoons. Some of the early cartoons are rather primitive by today's standards, but they are still fun to watch. And they get better as they progress from one cartoon to the next. One notable thing here is the cartoons that are labeled "From the Vault". These are cartoons that supposedly contain elements that may be offensive to today's audience (usually racial stereotypes), although in some of them I didn't notice anything that would be considered offensive. On the other hand, one of the "regular" cartoons here is called "Trader Mickey", and it contains caricatured African cannibals that will probably offend some people. Go figure. Anyway, this collection is a real treat for animation buffs. Get it before it sells out.